Contents

History

When the humans first came to the realm of Gielinor through the World Gate in the First Age, Guthix created Runestones, allowing the humans and other sentient races to practise the Magic arts. These runestones were created by Guthix using an ancient artefact called the Stone of Jas, which he found on Gielinor when he arrived.

In the Second Age, the humans continued and expanded the practice of magic. However, the runes that Guthix had provided began to dwindle and became a much sought after commodity. Many mages such as Dahmaroc had to fight each other for runestones. During one such fight, Dahmaroc was turned into stone himself, becoming what he once sought after so much.

At some point in the Second Age, the ability to craft runes was discovered when V - a FremennikSeer - found the Stone of Jas in the Lunar Islemine. Although the Stone was taken by 'those that walk a higher astral path', V discovered that the rocks around it had formed the Rune Essence, which is a magical rock capable of absorbing the elements of Magic. He and his followers then created the Runecrafting Altars in special areas most attuned to their respective element, which then folded upon themselves to create pocket dimensions. By bringing Rune Essence to these altars, runestones could be created. Many of the Fremennik thought that creating runes was blasphemy, as they were tools of the gods, and that they should only use the runes Guthix crafted for them, and V and his supporters split off from the Fremennik and formed the Moon Clan, and Runecrafting remained unknown outside of it.

By the time of the Fourth Age, the runestones that had been given by the gods had all but depleted due to the heavy use of Magic during the God Wars. The art of magic faded with the supply of runes, until essentially being lost to humans altogether.

At the start of the Fifth Age mainland Humans discovered Runecrafting when they discovered a Rune Essence Mine in the frozen north. After finding the essence, they soon after discovered the magical temples that the moon clan had created, and that the essence could be crafted there. Runecrafting soon became widely used in many locations. The Wizards' Tower was then formed, and became the greatest institution of magic in the land.

In year 70 of the Fifth Age the Wizards of the Wizards' Tower discovered how to solve the teleportation problem by routing teleports through another plane: the Abyss. This would allow them to teleport directly to the Rune Essence mine from anywhere in the world, which would greatly increase rune production. However there was a disagreement over exactly who should get the credit for the discovery, and the source of the actual spell, a Zamorakian demon, was unacceptable to the SaradoministBlue Wizards. The Blue Order abandoned the ritual to create a teleport "anchor" mid-casting, which caused a fire which destroyed the original Wizards' Tower, a catastrophe blamed in later years on the Zamorakian Red Order. The only survivors of the fire were Perien the Blue and Kelavan the Red. Perien founded a new Wizards' Tower on the site of the old one, and became its Archmage. Due to what happened to the first tower, which was a collaboration between followers of many gods, Archmage Perien restricted access to the tower to Saradominists only, and started teaching the teleport spell to the Rune Essence to only a select few people so that the Essence didn't fall into the wrong hands.

In year 169 of the Fifth Age Wizard Elriss from the Runecrafting Guild opened up more of the Runespan, the pocket dimension in which the Runecrafting Guild is located, where they could create Runes slightly different to those found in Gielinor. Rune essence here is obtained in floating rocks and in the local fauna, as opposed to that mined at the Rune essence mines. They are charged to an element (the same as those in Gielinor) by siphoning the fauna or nodes of elemental energy that appear on the plane.

However, free players can only craft runes up to body runes (using the Runecrafting skill). Also free players are limited in the runes they can find in stores and that can be bought on the Grand Exchange. The two magic stores (in Varrock and Port Sarim) only sell the basic elemental runes, chaos runes, and death runes. The other types of runes can be traded with other players, gotten as drops or spawns, or bought on the Grand Exchange in Varrock.

Minigame runes

Elemental runes and catalytic runes are given to players who are participating in Fist of Guthix, Dominion Tower, Barbarian Assault, or Stealing Creation. They are substitute for other runes. However they can only be used in combat spells. If a player tries to cast a non-combat spell, he or she will receive a messages saying You did not come here to do that!

The members-only Lunar spellStat Spy can be cast in Fist of Guthix, despite not directly affecting combat. These runes cannot be dropped. If they are dropped in the Fist of Guthix waiting room, they will be lost immediately. You will have to exit the waiting room and enter again to get them back.

Combination runes

These runes are members only, and act as one of each of their composite runes. To make them, you will need some elemental runes, a talisman of the same element, and an equal amount of pure essence. You must then take these items to the secondary elemental temple, and then use the elemental runes or talisman on that altar. For example, if you wanted to make dust runes, you would bring air runes, pure essence, and an air talisman to the earth altar; alternatively, you could bring earth runes, pure essence, and an earth talisman to the air altar. The talisman will be consumed as the combination runes are made.

Crafting combination runes uses one of the talismans, so it is recommended that one only crafts combination runes of the talismans one has the most of. The Lunar spellMagic Imbue allows a player to craft combination runes without the use of the opposing talisman. Crafting combination runes has a 50% chance of success. A Binding necklace allows 100% success for crafting combination runes 15 times.

Respawn locations

Here is a short list of respawn locations of runes throughout RuneScape.

The best place to get rune respawns in F2P is in the Dark Warriors' Fortress. The northernmost room contains respawns of 5 Earth, Water, Air and Fire runes. The room directly west of this contains 5 Chaos, Mind and Body runes. Players should be wary when approaching this area: Although this a good place for a rune spawn, the Wilderness is nevertheless a player-killing zone. It is not usually crowded and can be a good place for low levelled players to gain a few magic levels on the Dark Warriors.

Rune

Location

West of Lumbridge, behind Luthas's house on Karamja Island, Dark Warriors' Fortress, and on the ground floor of Lumbridge Castle next to the northern staircase.

Very close to the Grand Exchange. Surrounded by aggressive Skeletons so it can be difficult to trade without the window being automatically closed constantly. Must have completed Abyss Miniquest for increased stock and blood runes. Elemental stock of 1,000 runes after miniquest.

Trivia

An update fixed a bug in which runes purchased from the Grand Exchange used the image of a pure essence in place of the actual rune in the Grand Exchange collection box.

On 9 June2010, the images of runes in the inventory and bank were given a graphical revamp which tilted them to an angle, to make them look more 3D. Rune and pure essence were not included in the update.